With the emergence of video software applications (apps) for mobile devices, there is a movement toward real-time video sharing. Online mobile photo-sharing and video-sharing services have grown rapidly in recent years. With social media services that allow about 3-15 seconds per video (i.e., a “micro” video), users are even more likely to create and share videos from their smartphones and tablets.
Generally, augmented reality systems insert virtual characters or objects into real-world images, for example by overlaying a captured image or video stream with a two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) animated rendering of the virtual character. In one example, augmented reality is used to superimpose virtual people or animals over a video feed of a real scene. In some cases, the real scene is observed on a display device of a camera and a person standing in the scene can then make gestures that provide interactivity between the real person and the virtual person or animal, as observed by the camera. This interaction between the real person and the virtual person cannot be seen directly by the real person, but can be observed through a display that shows the augmented reality view. This view includes the real scene, the real person, and the virtual person.